Rosângela Rennó and Fiona Pardington, artists based in the southern hemisphere (Brazil and New Zealand), take a reparative approach to this topic. Their powerful portraits are not, however, redemptive or restorative in the straightforward way one might suppose. For them, reparative aesthetics signals the capacity to assimilate the consequences of destruction and violence.
Image: Portrait of a life cast of Matoua Tawai, Aotearoa/New Zealand
from ‘Ahua: A beautiful hesitation’ series 2010
archival pigments on 308gsm Hahnemuhle photo rag
146 x 110cm
University of Sydney Art Collection.
Purchased with funds from the Renshaw bequest 2014.
Courtesy: Musee de l’Homme (Musee National d’Histoire Naturelle), Paris.
